The present invention relates to a novel design and architecture for an electric door opener of the “rail type” (as defined below) for a garage or equivalent structure, in which a novel “drive assembly” (as defined below) is mounted in an advantageous position over the garage door opening with a pivotable mount, with no impact to functionality or performance, while providing a significant enhancement to safety, both during installation as well as over the lifetime of the unit. By contrast, drive assemblies for rail type garage door openers uniformly prevalent in the marketplace are required to be suspended from (or otherwise mounted to) the garage ceiling.
In addition to a novel structural design and architecture for rail type garage door openers, the present invention provides novel designs for a number of means that constitute changes to the drive assembly itself, and/or novel changes to the apparatus used for mounting, in order to reduce the invention to practice. All design changes to the drive assembly are supported by the design of appropriate mounts and mechanical adapters. None of these changes requires a complete redesign of the fundamental supporting components of prior art drive assemblies, such as the electronics, the drive train, the rail and trolley system, the safety features, and so on.
While the primary advantage of the present invention is that it can promote public safety, as a collateral advantage it is much easier and simpler to install and/or remove, such that either process is based upon the use of only three removable pins. (Two of the three removable pins are co-linear, and in theory could be combined into a long, single pin. Although this approach would technically result in a “two pin” solution, it was deemed to be impractical, and a trivial exception to “three pin” solution.) Either approach is a significant contrast to the prior art, in which the installation, removal and replacement of a rail type garage door opener is both laborious and risky.
It has been almost 90 years since the invention of the electric rail type garage door opener. Since then, perhaps hundreds of models of rail type garage door openers have been designed and marketed. It is estimated that many tens of millions of prior art units have been sold and installed, and that over a billion people around the world currently live and/or work in locations with prior art units. On the order of 200 patents have been granted regarding improvements to rail type garage door openers. In spite of many significant incremental improvements, no invention has heretofore challenged the basic structural architecture of the prior art, in spite of its significant deficiencies from a safety standpoint.
As will be seen, the invention disclosed herein is by no means “a trivial rearrangement of existing parts that does not produce new and unexpected results”. In fact, given the long history of rail type garage door openers, the enormous size of the present day market, and the severe deficiencies in heritage designs, it is completely unexpected that with modest changes to the prior art, the completely novel design and architecture of the invention disclosed herein allows it to be installed in a much easier and safer manner than the prior art, to operate seamlessly with respect to all required garage door opener functions, and provide significant safety enhancements that can benefit many millions of people.